Memeorandum

September 17, 2008

Barack Negotiating With Foreign Leaders?

Amir Taheri repeats the charge he leveled on Monday - Obama improperly negotiated with Iraqi leaders in an attempt to delay the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq. The original story, the Obama "denial" (which seemed to admit the charge) and my own thoughts noting that Obama's website jibes with Taheri's version are in this earlier post.

To recap briefly, the US is negotiating both a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and a Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) with Iraq. The SOFA would cover the legal status of US forces in Iraq and is needed by Dec 31, when the UN mandate expires. The SFA would be a long term deal describing the economic, diplomatic, and military relationship between the countries. Taheri alleged that Obama was urging the Iraqis to go slow on the Status of Forces Agreement, which eventually covered the topic of US troop withdrawals; Obama's response was that they discussed a delay in the Strategic Framework Agreement. My point - at Obama's website the line between SOFA and SFA is blurry, so at a minimum Obama may have confused his Iraqi counterparts, which is a risky business. And one might well wonder, why is Obama describing a US position anyway? He ought to be hearing their views, not presenting those of the United States and negotiating on Bush's behalf. With that background, let's pick up with Taheri's latest:

Here is how NBC reported Obama's position on June 16, after his
conversation in the US with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari:
"Obama also told Zebari, he said, that Congress should be involved in
any negotiations regarding a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq. He
suggested it may be better to wait until the next administration to
negotiate such an agreement."

In other words, Obama wanted a delay on the Status of Forces
Agreement, not on the Strategic Framework Agreement - as his rebuttal
now claims.

As Mr. Obama arrived in Michigan for a campaign stop on the economy,
he shared details of his morning telephone call with Iraqi Foreign
Minister Hoshyar Zebari. On Sunday, Mr. Zebari had a face-to-face
meeting with Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican
nominee.

Among the issues being discussed with the two presidential
candidates is the long-term security accord between Iraq and the United
States. While the Bush administration would like to see an agreement
reached before the summer’s political conventions, Mr. Obama said today
that he opposed such a timetable.

“My concern is that the Bush administration, in a weakened state
politically, ends up trying to rush an agreement that in some ways
might be binding to the next administration, whether it’s my
administration or Senator McCain’s administration,” Mr. Obama said.
“The foreign minister agreed that the next administration should not be
bound by an agreement that’s currently made.”

That version gives a bit of oxygen to the Obama side; where NBC specifically cites he Status of Forces Agreement, the Times refers vaguely to a "long term security accord". ABC News offers a third choice - Obama mentioned both:

Obama said Zebari told him the Iraqi government is deeply interested in
negotiating an effective Status of Forces agreement and a strategic
framework agreement with the United States — agreements that would
hammer out rules for U.S. troop operations in Iraq.

So far, talks between the U.S. and Iraq have stalled, and the
agreements remain controversial inside Iraq and the United States.
Obama said he told the Iraqi foreign minister that the U.S. has no
interest in establishing permanent bases in Iraq.

"I emphasized to him how encouraged I was by the reductions in
violence in Iraq, but also insisted that it is important for us to
begin the process of withdrawing U.S. troops, making clear that we have
no interest in permanent bases in Iraq, that any negotiations for a
Status of Forces agreement or strategic framework agreement should be
done in the open and with Congress's authorization, because I believe
that it's in the interests of both Iraq and the United States that any
such critical negotiations have strong bipartisan support and that they
can be sustained through a future administration," Obama told
reporters.

The Bush
administration must submit the agreement to Congress or allow the next
administration to negotiate an agreement that has bipartisan support...

and it appears he hewed to that line with the press. If he told Zebari the same thing, Zebari might well have come away with the idea that the next Administration ought to negotiate the SOFA.

In any case, subsequent Times reporting from July 3 reinforces Taheri - this is an account of a press conference with the Iraqi Foreign Minister:

Noting that the United States cannot stay in Iraq without legal
authorization, Mr. Zebari cited three options: “Either we conclude a
status of forces agreement; or we have an interim agreement until a
SOFA can be completed; or we go back to the Security Council at the end
of the year and ask for another extension.”

...

Mr. Zebari said that on his recent trip to the United States, in
addition to President Bush, he had met with the presumptive
presidential nominees, Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, and Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat.

He said that Mr. Obama had asked him: “ ‘Why is the Iraqi government
in a rush, in a hurry? This administration has only a few more months
in office.’ ”

Mr. Zebari said he told Mr. Obama that even a Democratic
administration would be better off having something “concrete in front
of them to take a hard look at.”

Mr. Zebari also indicated that even a full agreement would be
short. “We are not talking about 50 years, 25 years or 10 years; we are
negotiating about one or two years, so this is not going to be another
colonization of Iraq,” he said.

Well, the Strategic Framework Agreement would not be a one or two year document; from the context of the discussion, it seems fair to infer that Zebari is discussing the SOFA.

From multiple accounts it seems clear that Barack was urging the Iraqis to go slow on something. And based on the confusion at Obama's website, I would say that at a minimum Obama may have confused the Iraqi Foreign Minister (and the NBC reporter). As to why he was offering these points rather than humbly listening, who knows?

But there are a couple reasons why the bloviation looks to be uncalled for. The Obama camp yesterday put out a statement of its own
asserting that the story "bears as much resemblance to the truth as a
McCain campaign commercial," and charging that Taheri has confused a
long-term Status of Forces agreement with negotations over a
shorter-term drawdown.

Well, now wait - if the Obama defense is that the foreign leaders to whom Obama was speaking got confused by what he was saying, that is not much of a defense. Just words? If Taheri is confused it is because Zebari (and an NBC reporter) are also confused.

It's worth looking at that distinction more closely to get a sense of
what the Obama camp means here and where Taheri may have erred. In
terms of a Status of Forces agreement, Obama has consistently made
clear that he believes any such agreement should be delayed until after
the election -- so that a President Obama or McCain would not be bound
by an agreement negotiated by a weakened Bush administration. The
McCain camp did not object when, in June, Obama told reporters at a press conference that he had made exactly this argument to Zebari in a phone call.

Well, the non-objection by the McCain campaign means nothing, obviously - they have enough to do running their own campaign without also being obliged to track every utterance of The One. But isn't it great that we have a diligent watchdog press ready to record Obama's foreign policy gaffes?

As to the point that Obama has consistently called for a delay in the SOFA, well, I sort of took that from the website, and now Roth is admitting the charge himself (or maybe Roth is confused - it's catching!).

So let's recap his defense - Obama has consistently called for a delay in the SOFA but when Taheri reports that Obama suggested a delay in the SOFA to Zebari, Taheri was confused (as was an NBC reporter). Hmm, now I'm confused, too - the plan is working! But I lean towards the simpler explanation - Obama has consistently called for a delay in SOFA, explained that to Zebari, and subsequent reports are accurate.

This Roth defense doesn't cut it - if Obama can't communicate clearly he would do well to keep quiet, however difficult that may be for him. Given Obama's penchant for "foreign policy by gaffe", as with his revised pledge of unconditional meetings with foreign leaders or his revised promise of an undivided Jerusalem, maybe a bit of silent contemplation before he takes to the world stage would be a great idea.

STANDING BY THE STORYThe Obama campaign spent more than five hours on Monday attempting to figure out the best refutation of the explosive New York Postreport that quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying that Barack Obama
during his July visit to Baghdad demanded that Iraq not negotiate with
the Bush Administration on the withdrawal of American troops. Instead,
he asked that they delay such negotiations until after the presidential
handover at the end of January.

The three problems, according to
campaign sources: The report was true, there were at least three other
people in the room with Obama and Zebari to confirm the conversation,
and there was concern that there were enough aggressive reporters based
in Baghdad with the sources to confirm the conversation that to deny
the comments would create a bigger problem.

WHERE I DIFFER WITH TAHERI: It certainly appears that Obama was interfering with negotiations between Bush and a foreign leader, which ought to be a big story (but won't be, for obvious reasons). However, I dispute his notion that this would have delayed a US troop withdrawal - Zebari stated at different times that some sort of stopgap SOFA would have been put in place by the Dec 31 deadline, and in any case a decision by the US to withdraw some of our troops would not be blocked by the lack of a formal SOFA.

A reader notes, it's rather disingenuous for Obama to complain that America is spending $10 billion a month in Iraq and then turn around and tell the Iraqi government to delay final negotiations on the Status of Force Agreement and the Strategic Framework Agreement with the U.S. government until January.

The time between Obama's meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister on July 22 of this year and when the next president takes office on January 20 of next year is six months. Using Obama's own numbers, holding off the way he wishes will cost the United States an extra $60 billion.

As you folks know, (and exploited admirably in the most Republican fashion) the public has little tolerance for complex dioramas, like the outing of a CIA agent(Plame). The length of this post illustrates the layers of BS which must be sifted and sorted.

But if he is guilty as charged, hang him from the highest yardarm, right next to Rove, Cheney and Bush.

Barack urged Iraqi leaders to do something privately something he had been urging them to do publicly? Do I understand this to be correct? If so, explain the nature of the big revelation. Why is this a problem, rather than a mere diplomatic foot fault?

(Note -- I am aware the Obama denial is pathetic. I wonder if the man realizes how big a mistake his Summer Hubris Tour was?)

While I am encouraged by the senator's evolution, I must also appeal to him to issue a "cease and desist" plea to the battalions of his sympathizers - who have been threatening me with death and worse in the days since my article appeared.

there's a simple reason the Iraqi's want an agreement now. They don't trust the democrats. They want to make sure a committment is in place, and they are not shy about playing a few games with the American political dynamic either.

They want the best deal they can get, and they know it will be helicopters flying from the roof of the American Embassy if Obama is elected.

The Plame case is a joke, and everyone knows it. She was setting her hubby up with a sweetheart deal, and they were both very active democrats. It was Joe Wilson who came back with the malarkey about yellowcake for Saddam. It was Armitage who let the cat out of the bag "accidentally", and ever since the dems have been on a bogus warpath. The emperor has no clothes.

Who started the war, and when, has become the subject of heated debate here and in Moscow. Both Russia and Georgia have struggled to portray themselves as acting in self-defense or, in Russia's case, in defense of its smaller neighbor.

The timing of the Russians' entry into the tunnel is significant because it could clarify whether the troop movement was an act of aggression or a reaction.

Georgian officials said that one intercepted call on Aug. 6, released to The Washington Post on Tuesday, was a conversation between Ossetian militia members discussing an Ossetian soldier who had been accidentally wounded by a Russian who came in with a column of Russian troops. "From these Russians, from the Russian army, someone unintentionally fired, and this boy was wounded," an Ossetian is heard saying on the call, which was played on a Georgian commercial network.

I appreciate your input. The discussion is educational as always. Imagine healthcare caught up in this kind of mess. Obama would take us there in a heartbeat. Please don't sacrifice the better choice at the alter of the perfect. Perfect just ain't gonna happen.

How can anybody prefer a lightweight, phoney affirmative action candidate like Obama to handle a major economic financial crisis over a seasoned veteran like McCain?? I will never understand the muddle. It appears Obama was up +7 last night in gallup RV surveys. This guy is really just a kid. What is wrong with people?

I don't know, because most Southernors aren't buying what he's selling. There's not a lot of comfort just sitting helplessly on the sidelines praying that enough people in PA, OH, CO, or MI do the right thing.

Was reading a little Ben Franklin last evening. As a Boston Newspaper apprentice in 1722, (age 16), he had these following comments of his printed in the paper concerning Harvard Graduates. From Silence Dogood, May 14 , 1722:

"They learn little more than how to carry themselves handsomely, and enter a room genteelly (which might as well be acquired at a dancing school), and from thence they return, after abundance of trouble and charge, as great blockheads as ever, only more proud and self-conceited."

Don't know if it's true. I expect the organization cannot disinvite her. In fact, I emailed and told them that would be a stupid move. I expect if they pressure her out, She and McCain will have their own protest against Iran which will get them even more coverage.

Even before Taheri leveled his accusations, I considered Obama's tete a tete with Maliki a disgraceful, potentially dangerous, breach of U.S. international protocols, and said so at the time. It was stunning to see Obama insert himself between his own president and the Iraqi head of state at a critical juncture in fraught negotiations over ending a war Obama's own countrymen were fighting. This was unconscionable in and of itself, notwithstanding questions of intent. The whole exercise gave the concept of “meeting without preconditions” -- or forethought or foresight -- alarming new meaning.

Obama gave Maliki added heft not only in wartime maneuvers against a sitting U.S president, but in Maliki’s upcoming Iraqi elections as well, to unknown inadvertant effect on the balance of powers within Iraq itself. Obama then very publicly used Maliki’s purported blessing, quite possibly misstating it, to shore up his political position here at home — thus trapping Maliki into a harder negotiating stance than he might otherwise have taken. How could Maliki substantially modify his position without losing face nationally, regionally and internationally? How could he substantially contradict Obama’s representations, without risking the ire of the expected future President? Zebari himself is not a disinterested bystander here himself. He already had a sharp disagreement with Obama over the content of an early phone conversation, and he may conceivably just be reading a different set of election tea leaves.

The idea that a potential President (especially with the election which he was favored to win in the immediate offing) can go on a listening tour or have a simple conversation with any head of state is astonishingly obtuse. There is simply no possibility that Maliki would treat any recommendation about delaying any resolution of any facet of the war as a simple suggestion, not a warning. Could there be a clearer demonstration of dangerous naivete, as well as what someone on Obama’s own side of the blogosphere dubbed “accidental foreign policy”?

I can't say it often enough: Obama is a walking diplomatic disaster zone. The SOFA/SFA particulars of where he tried to exert his influence are an irrelevant strawman. Undercutting the American chief executive and his foreign policy surrogates, even as a private citizen, is sin enough. If Obama bothered to allow his home government the courtesy of a debriefing, I certainly didn’t hear about it. Though prosecution under the Logan Act is a virtual impossibility, compounding his original myopia with an explicit attempt to meddle with U.S. foreign policy stratagems and ongoing diplomatic missions at the highest level, without any legitimate standing whatsoever, is clearly a Logan Act violation.

Oh, and I'm sure you've all read that some vicious little Obamoid geek has hacked into Sarah Palin's private yahoo email account and posted the contents. You can find them at both Gawker and Huffington Post.

And I never ever ever ever want to hear another Liberal Democrat utter the word WATERGATE again for as long as I live. Nor do I ever want to hear the words Warrentless Wiretap, or Right to Privacy.

If any of you had been president of the Harvard law review... much less seen hard time in the trenches as a community organizer, you might begin to grok the finely nuanced brilliance of Barack Obama's Weltanschung.

Like a grand master he is playing chess on the dartboard of history.

But all you can bitter gun-clingers can do is drool over your Alaskan moosemistress. Sadly, the lessons of this whole sad episode are tragically clear: all sane people know the only factor which explains the stubborn refusal of every American voter to inexplicably throw their vote behind Barack Obama is 400 years of entrenched RACISM.

Hollis "Gunny" French (D)-- is guilty of misrepresenting that he served in the Marine Corps - when in fact his ONLY exposure to the Marine Corp was attending a Marine ROTC PLC - from which he was DISMISSED and granted a "Discharge" as a Private.
--He NEVER attended, much less graduate from either of the USMC Boot Camps.
--He FAILED to pass the ROTC Platoon Leader Course - thus failing to make the grade to become a Marine Officer.

The McCain campaign has responded to the hacking of Palin's emails with:

“This is a shocking invasion of the Governor’s privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.”

J.Verner: They are scum of the lowest order. I wish Sarah would make a statement something along the lines of: my daughter isn't interested in your $25,000 to abort, my son isn't interested in your sexual offers, I will not let your offensiveness dissuade me from running for VP, in fact, they make me more determined than ever to help John McCain get America back to some form of integrity and sanity.

The Washington Post suggests Obama may have been selected editor for the Harvard Law Review based on race.

But he was also among the most driven in his class. In his first year, he entered the competition for the law review, one of the country's premier scholarly law journals and, for the students who select, edit and write articles, a ticket to a high-powered legal or academic career. To become an editor of the law review was grueling: If you were impossibly smart, you might qualify through grades, but most editors were selected through an exhausting multi-day writing process, their output judged by the current editors. There was also a highly secretive process by which a few students were chosen based at least in part on race. Obama, says one classmate, was never suspected of making law review because of his race.

And we know Harvard University is an affirmative action university that practices grade inflation according to Harvard Professor Harvey C Mansfield and The Harvard Crimson

Mansfield attributes the rise in Harvard’s grades to a fall in expectations, brought on by the influx of less academically qualified black students in the 1970s. His argument is that white professors, afraid that they would be seen as racist, gave black students high grades they didn’t deserve.

And if Obama was selected for the Law Review based on race, it's plausible he was elected president also based on race.

One of the greatest men that ever lived once said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." So I ask you, can you prove to me that Obama's accomplishments at Harvard were based on the content of his character? Because I think Harvard University judged him by the color of his skin. And that's not what Dr. King had in mind!

Perhaps Harvey C. Mansfield could shed some light on Obama's time at Harvard?

When the clip of Lynn Forester de Rothschild was played on TV, I had just gone around the corner into the kitchen. I could hear the clip, but not see the TV. I nearly dropped the milk carton and a carton of eggs I had in my hands when I heard her speak. Her tone, cadence, precise diction and annunciation sounded exactly like my deceased Mother. So much so, that later, I found the clip online and played it for my son, without letting him see the screen and he said, "That's Grandma, where'd you get that?" [Twilight time at our house today.]

Sara, what an extraordinary experience that must have been. I trust it wasn't painful since you shared the opportunity to hear her again with your son. I would still be cleaning up the mess from the shock.

"I believe that Barack Obama, with MoveOn.org and Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, has taken the Democratic Party — and they will continue to — too far to the left," Lynn Forester de Rothschild said. "I'm not comfortable there."

This is more than a Hilary supporter playing strategic games. This woman is serious and she moves in serious circles. I hope there are an awful lot of her friends that feel the same way she does. I rather suspect there are. Not all Democrats are lefty loons, like the Kos crowd.

RoccoSo I ask you, can you prove to me that Obama's accomplishments at Harvard were based on the content of his character? Because I think Harvard University judged him by the color of his skin. And that's not what Dr. King had in mind!

Twas the color of his skin.
At that time there was a lot of racial tension at Harvard. Protests, all night vigils, black demands, etc.

I was tunned by Lynn de Rothchild's statement. Conservatives should listen. How many Dems are feeling the same?

My rhetorical questions to self make me ask, have I been wrong about my own conservative vision? Have I been TOO conservative and fallen into a purity trap? Maybe there are some ideas central that I maybe shoulda been considering all along.

I think Mme de Rothchild runs in the same circles as Soros, and other members of the elite who are pushing Obama. etc., and I really hope that moderate democrats will pay attention. She knows exactly what they are up to. Note what she said about the party moving too far to the left (translation: the marxists kooks and their meglomaniac billionare overlords are poised to really screw us all,)

Thank you for that link. The public needs to know this stuff, especially since the left cites his Harvard accomplishments continuously. We used to strive for academic exellence, now we settle for affirmative action and diversity. If I should ever need a lawyer, I want one who earned the grades, not one who was given the grades.